An order of this sort is typically appropriate when there has been a change in legal circumstances subsequent to the lower court or agency's decision, such as a change in the law, a precedential ruling, or a confession of error; the Supreme Court simply sends the case back to the lower court to be reconsidered in light of the new law or the new precedent.
GVR orders are designed to be efficient and thus are not full explications of the law, and have no precedential effect.
[1][2] In 1996, the Supreme Court discussed the appropriateness of GVR orders and upheld their use in a per curiam opinion in the case Lawrence v.
[3] An example of the Supreme Court issuing a GVR order is the case of Kansas v. Limon.
Under Kansas state law, statutory rape charges involving minors were greatly reduced if both parties were teenagers with few years between them.